NIASSA NATURE RESERVE · JURISDICTIONAL REDD+ & CLIMATE ARCHITECTURE

Niassa Nature Reserve & Province: Preserving Africa’s Great Miombo Carbon Sink.

Niassa is Mozambique’s largest and least densely settled province: 129,056 km² in the far north, between Lake Niassa and the Rovuma River on the Tanzanian border, with a projected 2.27 million inhabitants.¹ Between 7.9 and 8.4 million hectares of it are forest, almost all of it Miombo woodland.^4,10 At its centre lies the Niassa Special Reserve, about 42,300 km² and close to a third of the country’s protected land.^27,1

The same province is now the country’s largest deforestation front by area. It lost a mean 52,091 hectares of forest a year in 2020 to 2023, 49% more than in 2003 to 2013.^1,10 This portal sets out, from public primary sources, what a jurisdictional programme for the whole province can credibly deliver under ART TREES 3.0, what the State must do before a single unit can be exported, and how the institutional architecture is built.

Where the programme standsPre-registration. No TREES Concept has been filed, no unit has been issued and no transfer has been authorised. Volumes and values on this site are scenario arithmetic from public inputs. They are not forecasts.“Niassa Nature Reserve” is the name of this initiative. The protected area itself is the Niassa Special Reserve, managed by the national conservation authority. This portal is independent and is not the website of the Reserve or of its management.

Niassa Province, the accounting area
Niassa Special Reserve, approximate extent
Main deforestation front, settled west and south
Community conservation area (Chipanje Chetu, indicative)

Country outline: Natural Earth 1:50m.²⁸ The internal provincial boundary, the Reserve extent, the zones and the lake shore are generalised and serve orientation only. Zones follow the provincial forest plan.¹⁰

Accounting area129,056 km²7.9–8.4 Mha of forest, 23–26% of the national forest estate

Carbon density, Miombo stratum150 tCO₂e/haabove- and below-ground biomass; soil carbon is outside the national baseline

Crediting standardART TREES 3.0standard crediting level; at about 0.6% forest loss a year the HFLD approach does not apply

Compliance routeArticle 6.2the only open route to CORSIA; Article 6.4 has no method for a jurisdictional forest programme

Legal structuringADGM vehiclepassive administrative company under English common law; holds neither units nor proceeds

Transferable share of gross49–71%four deduction cases for leakage, uncertainty and buffer; base case 4.4–5.1 Mt to 2035

Five findings

The asset is real, and the pressure on it is rising.Niassa holds about a quarter of Mozambique’s forest and has become its largest deforestation front. Any reduction is measured against a recent and rising baseline.
The standard fits; the volume is moderate.The province qualifies under ART TREES 3.0. In the base case 7.8 MtCO₂e of gross reductions to 2035 yield 4.4 to 5.1 Mt of transferable units.
Compliance status depends on acts of State.A unit reaches CORSIA only with Mozambique’s authorisation and corresponding adjustment. The organ, the initial report and the final climate target are still to come.
Carbon revenue co-finances a public plan.At US$15 to US$18 a unit, receipts of US$66 to US$91 million roughly match the US$82 million provincial forest plan. About four years must be pre-financed.
The architecture separates what must stay separate.The State owns and sells. A passive ADGM vehicle administers. Money moves against verified delivery, and the community share ranks ahead of the State’s.

The ecological and climatic starting point

Miombo is the dry woodland of south-central Africa, dominated by trees of the genera Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia. It forms a belt of roughly two million square kilometres on which some 300 million people depend. It is fire-adapted and regrows from rootstock, which makes it resilient to moderate use and vulnerable to repeated clearing for maize, tobacco and charcoal.

1.1 The carbon in a hectare of Miombo

Mozambique’s forest monitoring system groups its forest types into five strata. The emission factors come from the field plots of the fourth National Forest Inventory (2015 to 2017).^2,4 The semi-deciduous stratum, almost all of it Miombo, makes up two-thirds of the mapped forest estate and more than three-quarters of what is cleared each year. A large part of its biomass sits below ground: 24.8 tonnes of roots against 62.2 tonnes of stems and crowns per hectare, a root-to-shoot ratio of 0.40. Clearing and burning releases both.

Table 1.1 · National forest strata and emission factors. Biomass in tonnes of dry matter per hectare; tCO₂e/ha = (above + below ground) × 0.47 × 44/12.
Forest stratum	Area 2016, ha	Share	Above-ground, t/ha	Below-ground, t/ha	tCO₂e/ha
Semi-deciduous, incl. Miombo	22,986,255	67.3%	62.24	24.82	150
Semi-evergreen (montane, gallery, coastal)	6,999,749	20.5%	99.89	29.19	222
Mopane	2,919,235	8.5%	44.51	13.89	101
Mecrusse	902,569	2.6%	78.65	20.58	171
Mangrove	297,889	0.9%	92.00	26.68	205

Three limits of these figures matter for any programme. They count living biomass only: dead wood, litter and soil carbon are outside the national accounts. They measure deforestation, the conversion of forest to another land use, and not the degradation of forest that remains forest through fire, fuelwood and selective logging. And the official series cover carbon dioxide only; methane and nitrous oxide from fire are not included.²

What one hectare is worth

Clearing a hectare of Miombo released a net 133 tCO₂e on reference-period averages. At US$10 to US$18 a tonne, keeping that hectare standing is worth about US$1,300 to US$2,400, once. Whether that sum reaches the household that would otherwise clear it decides whether a programme changes behaviour.

1.2 Niassa is now the largest deforestation front

In 2003 to 2016 the frontier lay in Nampula, Zambézia and Manica. It has moved north. On the map-based statistics published by the national statistics office, Niassa lost a mean 52,091 hectares a year in 2020 to 2023, 21.4% of the national total, and emitted about 7.28 MtCO₂e a year from deforestation.¹ The provincial forest plan locates the loss around Lichinga and in the districts of Muembe, N’gauma, Mandimba, Sanga and Marrupa, mostly in the settled west and south and outside the Reserve.¹⁰

Figure 1.1 · Mean annual deforestation by province, 2020 to 2023, with mean annual emissions. Niassa leads by area; Zambézia leads by emissions because its forest is denser.¹

Table 1.2 · Deforestation in Niassa Province, official map-based statistics.
Period	Deforestation, ha a year	Emissions, MtCO₂e a year
2003–2013, mean	34,949	5.16
2020	50,658	–
2021	60,483	–
2022	47,247	–
2023	49,975	–
2020–2023, mean	52,091	7.28

Two official numbers for the same year

For 2020 the national results filed with the UNFCCC and the map-based statistics differ by 39% in area. In May 2025 Mozambique also restated its national results for 2017 to 2020 from 84.2 to 29.82 MtCO₂e after re-interpreting the full sample grid.^2,1 A verifier will not accept two series that disagree. One reconciled, sample-based series for Niassa, with confidence intervals, is therefore the first technical task of any programme, and every volume on this site carries that caveat.

1.3 What drives the loss

Most of the emissions come from a very large number of farming households, not from a handful of companies. They cannot be regulated away. A programme reduces them by changing what those households earn from standing forest and from the fields they already have.^4,10

Table 1.3 · Drivers of deforestation and degradation in Niassa.
Driver	What the public record quantifies
Shifting cultivation (machambas)	65% of deforested area nationally. In Niassa 533,340 ha of maize, 174,722 ha of beans and 88,715 ha of cassava were under cultivation in 2018.
Tobacco curing	About 25,000 ha of tobacco a year; 19.9 m³ of fuelwood for each tonne cured, about 497,500 m³ a year, equal to roughly 6,600 ha of woodland.
Fuelwood and charcoal	655,497 t of biomass a year, equal to about 10,500 ha of Miombo. Demand of 1.29 million m³ exceeds the allowable 1.15 million m³; 94% of residents outside Lichinga and Cuamba cook with fuelwood.
Timber	30 concessions and simple licences on 560,000 ha; allowable cut about 220,000 m³ a year. Illegal logging matters more for degradation and governance than for cleared area.
Late-season fire	1,073 fire hotspots in Niassa in 2020, about a fifth of the national total; roughly half of the Reserve’s core burns each year, mostly from August to October.
Settlement, roads, mining	Population growth of about 4% a year since 1980. No quantified share for roads and mining in Niassa.

1.4 Why the accounting has to be jurisdictional

A stand-alone project protects a perimeter. The farmer, the charcoal burner and the tobacco grower move to the next unprotected block, and the emissions move with them. This displacement, known as leakage, is the central weakness of project-level REDD+. Jurisdictional accounting answers it by measuring the whole administrative unit: whatever is cleared anywhere in the province counts against the result.

Standard and law point the same way. ART TREES credits only national governments or subnational jurisdictions one administrative level below, whose accounting area follows whole administrative boundaries and holds at least 2.5 million hectares of forest; accounting areas may not overlap, and subnational accounting ends on 31 December 2035.¹⁸ Niassa meets the size test more than three times over. Mozambican law draws the same line: under Decree 23/2018 a REDD+ programme is jurisdictional and developed by the Government, while a project is private, confined to a district or a conservation area, and may not overlap with another.⁷ Project-level activity is not excluded. It is nested inside the provincial account, which is how further initiatives can later be brought under the same framework.

Sovereign governance and ADGM ring-fencing

A jurisdictional programme is a long relationship with a State. Its units have a price only if four things hold at the same time: the State remains the owner, the commercial machinery is separated from the balance sheet of any private developer, money moves only against verified delivery, and the State itself authorises the export. The architecture below is built around those four points.

Sovereign resource ownership

Land and natural resources are the property of the State under the Constitution. Decree 23/2018 applies that rule to carbon: the State owns the emission reductions and the titles that represent them, the finance ministry issues and registers them, and the national sustainable-development fund gives the technical opinion and keeps the register. Inside a conservation area and its buffer zone, the entity that manages the area holds the right to use the carbon stock.^9,7,8 A private party therefore never holds title. Its position is contractual, and the architecture is designed on that footing.

Institutional ring-fencing in the ADGM

Contracting and administration sit in a dedicated company, the Mozambique Carbon Market SPV, in the Abu Dhabi Global Market, where English common law applies directly.²⁴ The vehicle is deliberately passive. It administers contracts, reconciles and reports. It does not sell units as principal and it holds neither units nor sale proceeds, which are collected in an account in the Republic’s name and swept to the Treasury. The effect is separation: the programme does not depend on the solvency, the pre-financing or the continued existence of a private project developer. Separation is a design objective that counsel has to confirm. It is not a guarantee of anyone’s performance.

ESG Prime Council and milestone governance

A five-seat ESG Prime Council oversees the framework. Technical contractors for monitoring, field inventory and audit are paid against verified milestones and not in advance. The body that verifies results is contracted separately from the firms that implement the programme. The developer’s consideration is the last step of the waterfall, capped, and payable only from cash received for units that have been verified, issued and sold. No advance is owed by the State.

Sovereign authorisation under Article 6

A unit becomes a compliance instrument only when the host State authorises its use and undertakes to make a corresponding adjustment to its own emissions balance.^20,18 The model has two steps: a framework authorisation before registration, without quantities, and a letter for each verified vintage before ART issues the units. A framework is not an authorisation, and this step is still open. As at 10 October 2026 no instrument in force names the organ that authorises transfers, Mozambique has filed no Article 6.2 initial report, and its 2035 climate target is provisional.^7,17 Compliance status is earned vintage by vintage through those acts of State. It cannot be asserted in advance.

Figure 2.1 · The cycle of a vintage. Reductions arise in Niassa, are measured and verified, authorised by the State, issued into the State’s registry account and delivered to buyers against payment. Receipts go to the Treasury and return to Niassa through the benefit-sharing pool. The ADGM vehicle administers the cycle; it does not stand in the flow of units or money.

Table 2.1 · Functional perimeter of the administrative vehicle.
The vehicle does	The vehicle does not
Prepares, administers and monitors sales contracts on behalf of the Republic	Sell units as principal
Reconciles registry, bank and contract records and reports on them	Receive or hold sale proceeds
Holds the shareholdings of co-investors, separate from any right to buy units	Hold units for the State or for buyers
Receives the capped, subordinated developer consideration	Match, net or guarantee trades; borrow from third parties or grant security

Settlement of a sale in eight steps

The accredited verifier completes verification; the ART Board approves issuance.
The authorising organ and the finance ministry issue the vintage letter for the quantity being sold.
ART issues serialised, labelled units into the Government’s programme account.
The finance ministry registers the sale, which is a condition of a valid sale under Decree 23/2018.
The State instructs transfer to the buyer’s registry account against the buyer’s payment. There is no central counterparty.
The buyer’s bank credits US dollars to a collection account in the Republic’s name; the receipt is recorded gross as State revenue.
The account bank applies the waterfall and remits to the Treasury within days.
The vehicle reconciles registry, bank and contract records and reports.

Order of payments (waterfall)

Table 2.2 · The benefit-sharing pool ranks ahead of the sovereign share, so that delivery to communities does not depend on the budget cycle.
Rank	Claim	Rule
1	Operating and registry costs	Annual budget approved by the steering body; invoices of registry, verifier and monitoring unit paid directly by the account bank.
2	Reserve	24 months of budgeted operating costs, revolving; any excess is released down the waterfall.
3	Benefit-sharing pool	A community floor fixed in a legal instrument as a share of gross receipts; tranches released against audited milestones.
4	Sovereign share	The balance after the pool’s floor, paid to the Treasury and appropriated in the budget.
5	Developer consideration	A capped percentage of distributable cash with a ceiling for each vintage; no accrual, no interest, no minimum.

The evidence in six modules

The evidence is organised in six modules. Each can be read on its own. Together they follow the path of a tonne: from the forest and its baseline, through the standard and the State’s authorisation, to the market, the money and the conditions under which the programme should proceed. Every quantitative statement rests on a public primary source listed at the end of this page; scenario figures are calculated from those inputs and marked as such.

Module 01

Mozambique: forest, baseline, record and law

Mozambique holds one of the largest forest estates in southern Africa and was the first country paid by the World Bank’s carbon fund for verified jurisdictional emission reductions.¹⁴ It also loses about a quarter of a million hectares of forest a year, and its carbon-market rulebook is unfinished. This module sets out the asset, the baseline, the record and the law.

Mapped forest cover 2016, 43% of the territory: 34.2 Mha
Carbon in living forest biomass, derived from official areas and factors: 5.5 GtCO₂e
Forest reference emission level, CO₂e, mean of 2003–2013: 38.96 Mt a year
Mean national deforestation 2020–2023, 91% of the reference-period mean: 243,731 ha a year
National results 2017–2020 as restated in May 2025: 29.82 MtCO₂e
First results-based payment, for 1.28 MtCO₂e (October 2021): US$6.4 million

How much forest

Published figures for Mozambique’s forest area range from 31.7 to more than 40 million hectares, because they come from different inventories, definitions and years. The widely quoted “about 40 million hectares” dates from the 2007 inventory. The fourth National Forest Inventory maps 34.17 Mha under the national definition (at least one hectare, canopy cover of 30% or more, trees able to reach three metres) and estimates 31.7 Mha of natural forest.^4,1,6 This portal uses those two figures and not the older one. Much Miombo is open woodland near the 30% canopy threshold, so a small change in definition moves millions of hectares between classes.

The reference level and what it leaves out

Mozambique filed its forest reference emission level with the UNFCCC on 10 January 2018. After technical assessment it stands at 38,956,426 tCO₂e a year, the mean of 2003 to 2013, from a mean 267,029 hectares deforested each year.^3,2 Activity data come from a 4 × 4 km grid of 48,894 one-hectare sample units; emission factors come from the inventory plots. The level covers deforestation only, above- and below-ground biomass only, and carbon dioxide only.

Table M1.1 · National deforestation on the annual map-based series.
Year	Deforestation, ha	Emissions, tCO₂e	% of reference level
2020	242,390	41,572,593	107
2021	303,689	53,854,733	138
2022	209,464	36,956,340	95
2023	219,381	37,802,704	97
Mean	243,731	42,546,592	109

A reference level is not a crediting level, and results are not credits. Performance against the UNFCCC benchmark qualifies a country for results-based payments. A carbon standard sets its own baseline: under ART TREES, a five-year historical average. Units exist only after independent verification and issuance, and compliance buyers additionally need the host country’s authorisation and a corresponding adjustment.^18,20

Zambézia: the test case

The Zambézia programme is the only jurisdictional REDD+ programme in Mozambique with verified results, and the closest precedent for Niassa. Its purchase agreement of 2019 offered up to US$50 million for up to 10 MtCO₂e by the end of 2024. For 2018 the verifier confirmed 2,040,904 tCO₂e; the fund bought 1.28 Mt for US$6.4 million, paid in October 2021. For 2019 to 2020 gross reductions were about 875,600 t, of which about 483,800 t remained after the uncertainty and reversal buffers.^14,15,16

Figure M1.1 · Zambézia: volume contracted against volumes verified for 2018 to 2020 and volume paid for.^14,15

Performance swings. A strong first year was followed by a reduction of about 7% against the reference level in the next two.
Deductions are heavy. In 2019 to 2020 only 55% of gross reductions became transferable. A model that nets off 15% to 20% is not using Mozambique’s experience.
Cash follows results by years. Reductions achieved in 2018 were paid for in October 2021. The gap has to be pre-financed.
The monitoring capability exists. A dedicated unit, a national sample grid, annual satellite change maps since 2017 and two verifications by an accredited body are assets a new programme can use from the first day.
An approved plan is waiting for finance. The Niassa forest plan 2023 to 2032 sets out measures, institutions and a budget of US$82 million, and states that the province cannot fund it.¹⁰ A carbon programme that pays for that plan finances a policy the Government has already adopted.

The law in force

Table M1.2 · Provisions of the REDD+ Regulation that bind any structure.
Decree 23/2018	Rule	Consequence
Arts. 4(a), 6(1)	The State owns the emission reductions and the titles that represent them.	A developer’s economic interest is contractual.
Arts. 6(2), 14, 26	The finance ministry issues and manages titles. Reductions must be registered with it before they are sold, in Mozambique or abroad.	Its participation is a legal condition of monetisation.
Arts. 8–10, 18	The national sustainable-development fund gives the technical opinion, keeps the register and approves standards and methodologies.	The crediting standard needs formal recognition.
Art. 16	Programmes are developed by the Government; projects by private, non-governmental or community proponents.	The provincial track is a Government programme.
Art. 17(6)	Activities in conservation areas and buffer zones require the opinion and oversight of the area’s administration.	The Reserve’s managers are parties to the process.
Art. 19	No geographic overlap; the first valid application prevails.	A register search for Niassa is a first diligence step.
Arts. 21, 22, 25	Licence valid for 20 years and renewable; revocable for failure to implement the benefit-sharing plan or for two years without activity.	Delivery risk sits with the licence-holder.
Arts. 27, 28	A national register of transactions, or an approved external register; two buffers for each programme, for uncertainty and for reversals.	Basis for using an international registry; national set-asides exist beside those of the standard.

The rulebook is unfinished

A general Carbon Markets Regulation for all sectors has been in public consultation three times, most recently until 29 August 2026, and had not been adopted as at 10 October 2026. Its outline provides for a central registry, an authorisation procedure, State charges on mitigation outcomes and adjustments at levels still to be set, mandatory benefit-sharing agreements and a transition window for existing activities.¹¹ Any framework agreed before adoption has to be read against the final text.

Module 02

Niassa: accounting area, carbon pools and yield

The accounting area is the whole of Niassa Province, registered by the national Government as a subnational jurisdiction under ART TREES 3.0. The Niassa Special Reserve is the core biodiversity zone inside it. It is not a separate accounting area and could not be one, because it is not an administrative unit.

Table M2.1 · The jurisdiction in figures.
Parameter	Value	Note
Province area	129,056 km²	Statistics office; the forest-monitoring frame gives 126,483 km².
Forest cover	7.89–8.37 Mha	8,374,775 ha in the provincial plan (68.2% of land, 99.8% natural forest); about 7.89 Mha implied by the inventory.
Minimum for a subnational area	2.5 Mha	TREES 3.0, section 3.1.1. Met.
Share of national forest	24.5–24.9%	Like-for-like pairings; other pairings give 23.1% to 26.4%. The 25% line decides the leakage category.
Niassa Special Reserve	42,300–42,486 km²	Core of 37,948 km²; about 60,000 people live in and around it. Its eastern blocks lie in Cabo Delgado Province, outside the accounting area.
Deforestation rate	about 0.6% a year	52,091 ha a year on 7.9–8.4 Mha.

Crediting level and the HFLD test

Under TREES 3.0 the crediting level is the mean of emissions in a five-year reference period immediately before the crediting period, reduced by 1% to keep it below business as usual. It is recalculated every five years and may not rise.¹⁸ As a stand-in until a reconciled provincial series exists, this portal uses the published mean of 2020 to 2023: 7,284,592 tCO₂e a year, giving a first crediting level of 7,211,746 tCO₂e a year.

Why the HFLD approach does not apply to Niassa

TREES offers an optional crediting approach for high-forest, low-deforestation jurisdictions. It is open only where the HFLD score reaches 0.5 in every year of the reference period. The score is the sum of a forest cover score, (forest cover in % − 50) ÷ 100, and a deforestation rate score, 0.5 − annual deforestation rate in %.¹⁸

Component	Niassa	Score
Forest cover	68.2% of land area	0.18
Deforestation rate	0.62% a year (52,091 ha of 8,374,775 ha)	−0.12
HFLD score	threshold 0.5	about 0.06

Niassa is a high-forest jurisdiction with a deforestation rate far above the low-deforestation range. Only the standard crediting level applies. That is commercially cleaner: its units carry no HFLD label, a category that some compliance buyers treat with reserve.

Carbon pools and gases

Table M2.2 · Scope of pools and gases. Emission factor for the Miombo stratum: 150 tCO₂e per hectare; provincial statistics imply 138 to 148.
Pool, gas or activity	In the national baseline	Treatment in the first crediting period
Above-ground tree biomass	Yes	Included. 62.2 t of dry matter per hectare in the national Miombo factor.
Below-ground tree biomass	Yes	Included through the root-to-shoot ratio: 24.8 t per hectare.
Dead wood and litter	No	Excluded as conservative; measured in the plots.
Soil organic carbon	No	Excluded; sampled, with a decision on inclusion for the second period.
Carbon dioxide	Yes	Included.
Methane and nitrous oxide from fire	No	Assessed together with degradation.
Deforestation	Yes	Included.
Forest degradation	No	A first estimate is required before registration; the activity is then included or its exclusion justified.

Yield to 2035

The base case assumes that emissions fall to 20% below the pre-programme mean by 2031 and to 30% below it by 2035. Two features of the standard shape the result. The crediting level is reset in 2032 to the mean of the first period, so a tonne reduced is rewarded for five years at most; without the reset the nine-year gross total would be 10.85 MtCO₂e and not 7.80. And only a part of each gross tonne becomes a transferable unit, as section 4 shows.

Figure M2.1 · Base case: gross reductions by vintage and the part that remains transferable. The drop in 2032 is the crediting-level reset, not a loss of performance.

Year-by-year table, base case

Table M2.3 · MtCO₂e. Pre-programme mean: 7.28 MtCO₂e a year.
Vintage	Crediting level	Emissions	Gross reduction	Transferable, 64.8%	Transferable, 56.8%
2027	7.21	7.14	0.07	0.05	0.04
2028	7.21	6.85	0.36	0.24	0.21
2029	7.21	6.56	0.66	0.42	0.37
2030	7.21	6.19	1.02	0.66	0.58
2031	7.21	5.83	1.38	0.90	0.79
2032	6.45	5.68	0.77	0.50	0.43
2033	6.45	5.46	0.98	0.64	0.56
2034	6.45	5.24	1.20	0.78	0.68
2035	6.45	5.10	1.35	0.87	0.77
2027–2035			7.80	5.05	4.43

Table M2.4 · Three emission paths, MtCO₂e. The path of emissions moves the result by a factor of almost five; the deduction case by about 1.5.
Path	Emissions below pre-programme mean	Gross, 2027–2035	Transferable, central cases	Transferable, all cases
Low	10% in 2031 and 2035	2.73	1.55–1.77	1.33–1.95
Base	20% in 2031, 30% in 2035	7.80	4.43–5.05	3.80–5.57
Upside	33% in 2031, 45% in 2035	12.76	7.25–8.27	6.22–9.11

The 36-month workplan

Table M2.5 · Critical path under the TREES cycle.
Phase	Months	Deliverables
I	1–6	Reconciled provincial estimate with confidence intervals; first estimate of degradation; forest map; written position of the Reserve’s managers; TREES Concept filed by month 6.
II	7–18	Registration Document filed by month 15; benefit-sharing plan agreed; programme licence by month 18; first crediting year completed and measured.
III	19–36	First Monitoring Report, validation and verification; review and Board approval; first issuance in months 33 to 36, for year one only.

The first issuance is small

The first issuance covers the first crediting year alone: about 0.04 to 0.05 MtCO₂e transferable in the base case. Material volumes arrive in years four and five. Significant carbon revenue within 36 months is inconsistent with the standard’s cycle, and a programme should be financed for about four years before the first material receipt.

Module 03

Article 6: authorisation and corresponding adjustments

Compliance buyers under CORSIA and Article 6 do not buy verified reductions. They buy mitigation outcomes that the host country has authorised and against which it adjusts its own emissions balance. For a jurisdictional forest programme, Article 6.2 is the only route that is open today.^20,18

Table M3.1 · The two routes compared.
Dimension	Article 6.2, cooperative approach	Article 6.4 mechanism
Who certifies	The standard the Parties accept; here ART TREES 3.0 with an accredited verifier	Mechanism methodologies and designated operational entities
Method for a jurisdictional forest programme	Available	None identified
Levies at issuance	None required	5% share of proceeds plus 2% cancellation
Aviation eligibility	ART approved by ICAO for the first phase and for 2027–2029	Not approved at first issuance
Review	Expert review and publication; no power to block a transfer	Decisions of the Supervisory Body
Where the risk sits	With the host State	Shared between host State and mechanism

Where Mozambique stands

Table M3.2 · Six requirements for taking part in Article 6.2.
Participation requirement (decision 2/CMA.3)	Position as at 10 October 2026
Party to the Paris Agreement	Met.
NDC prepared, communicated and maintained	Met in form. The NDC for 2026–2035 is filed as provisional, with a conditional target of 15% to 25% below business as usual; a final version with a target in tonnes is needed.
Arrangements for authorising the use of mitigation outcomes	Open. No instrument in force designates an authorising organ.
Arrangements for tracking	Open. No national register operates; an external registry requires the finance ministry’s endorsement.
Most recent national inventory provided	To be confirmed.
Participation contributes to the NDC and long-term strategy	To be shown in the initial report, which has not been filed.

Authorisation in two steps

The model follows the precedent of Guyana, which filed its initial report in 2024 and issued a host-country letter for a verified vintage in 2025.²⁵ A framework authorisation is issued before the Registration Document, at about month 15. It covers the cooperative approach, the entities, the permitted uses, the definition of first transfer and the terms for change, and it contains no quantity. A vintage letter follows each verification and precedes issuance; it states the quantity for that year. Defining first transfer as the authorisation protects the buyer from the date of the letter, and issuing letters in tranches that match verified, sold volumes limits the adjustments the State has to carry.

Thirteen elements of a letter of authorisation

Issuer and authority: signed by the organ named in a published instrument and endorsed by the finance ministry.
The cooperative approach, with its identifier and Mozambique as participating Party.
Entities: the State as holder of the programme account; buyers not named.
Quantity and vintage: one letter for each verified year; no quantity before verification.
Uses: both NDC use and other international mitigation purposes, with aviation named.
First transfer defined as the authorisation.
Adjustment undertaking: method stated; annual information by 15 April; transparency report by 31 December.
No domestic use: the units are not counted towards Mozambique’s own NDC.
Changes: irrevocable from first transfer; before that, changeable only for stated causes.
Registry and reporting: the ART Registry, endorsed by the finance ministry.
Charges: all State charges stated, or stated as nil.
Law and recourse: the undertakings repeated as covenants in the framework instrument.
Publication on the UNFCCC platform and by the State and ART on the day of issue.

What the State keeps

A corresponding adjustment adds the exported tonnes back to the host country’s emissions balance. Because the crediting level is reset and deductions apply, far fewer units are exported than emissions are actually reduced. In the base case Mozambique reduces 11.51 MtCO₂e against pre-programme emissions over 2027 to 2035, exports 4.4 to 5.1 Mt and keeps 6.5 to 7.1 Mt for its own climate target.

Table M3.3 · Base case, medium leakage category, MtCO₂e. In the high leakage category: 4.43 transferable, 7.08 retained.
Vintage	Reduction against pre-programme emissions	Units transferable and adjusted	Retained by Mozambique
2027	0.15	0.05	0.10
2028	0.44	0.24	0.20
2029	0.73	0.42	0.30
2030	1.09	0.66	0.43
2031	1.46	0.90	0.56
2032	1.60	0.50	1.11
2033	1.82	0.64	1.18
2034	2.04	0.78	1.26
2035	2.19	0.87	1.31
2027–2035	11.51	5.05	6.46

Reporting calendar

Table M3.4 · Sequence if mobilisation begins in January 2027.
Date	Event
January–June 2027	Instrument naming the authorising organ; final NDC 3.0; TREES Concept filed in June.
By March 2028	Framework authorisation and Article 6.2 initial report, with the TREES Registration Document.
Mid-2029	First verification complete; vintage letter for 2027.
September–December 2029	ART issues the 2027 vintage; first transfer and first sale.
15 April 2030	Annual information for 2029, showing the authorisation and first transfer.
31 December 2030	Transparency report; the first that can show the adjustment for 2027.
31 January 2031	Expected end of the aviation cancellation window for 2027–2029.

Authority first, governing law last

A contract cannot cure a defect in a sovereign act. If a letter of authorisation is signed by an organ without the power to sign it, no covenant under English law revives it. The order of defence is therefore: authority first, payment terms second, contract remedies third, insurance fourth. Paying on delivery of authorised units into the buyer’s own registry account is the strongest practical protection. None of the State acts described here should be presented as complete until it is.

Module 04

CORSIA: eligibility, demand and price

CORSIA, the offsetting scheme of the International Civil Aviation Organization, is the largest source of compliance demand that a jurisdictional forest unit can reach. Its second phase runs from 2027 to 2035 in three compliance periods, and participation widens in 2027.^21,23

Table M4.1 · Phases and deadlines. Every eligible unit needs the host country’s attestation.
Phase	Years	Cancellation deadline	Note
Pilot	2021–2023	31 January 2025	No offsetting requirement arose.
First	2024–2026	31 January 2028	Baseline at 85% of 2019 emissions; requirement for 2024 about 55.6 MtCO₂.
Second, period 1	2027–2029	31 January 2031 (derived)	ART approved; eligible reductions from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2029.
Second, period 2	2030–2032	31 January 2034 (derived)	No programme approved yet.
Second, period 3	2033–2035	31 January 2037 (derived)	No programme approved yet.

Demand

Table M4.2 · Offsetting requirement, MtCO₂ a year. Published forecasts are generally lower than the base scenario; 1.0 billion tonnes is the prudent planning figure.
Scenario	2027	2030	2035	Total 2027–2035
Low	84	104	140	1.00 billion t
Base	116	155	227	1.53 billion t
High	128	180	279	1.81 billion t

Sustainable aviation fuel does not close the gap. Output was about 1.0 Mt in 2024 and is projected at 2.4 Mt in 2026, 0.8% of jet fuel.²³ Even if every tonne were claimed, fuel would cancel about 6% to 10% of the 2030 requirement and 8% to 18% of the 2035 requirement. It costs roughly US$330 to US$690 for each tonne of CO₂ avoided, far above unit prices, so it does not set the price of a unit. Niassa’s base-case volume is about 0.3% of second-phase demand: the programme is a price-taker and demand is not its constraint.

Price

Figure M4.1 · Assessments of first-phase eligible units, with the three bands used on this site. No assessment exists yet for second-phase units.²²

The assessment fell from a peak of US$23.20 in October 2025 to US$9.50 on 24 June 2026, although tagged supply of about 32 Mt stood far below the first-phase requirement. Buyers deferred, enforcement was uneven and supply rules were relaxed. The base band of US$15 to US$18 therefore sits about 50% above mid-2026 spot. It is a central case. It is not a floor and should not be presented as conservative.

Which Niassa vintages reach which period

Table M4.3 · Base case on the standard reporting cycle.
Vintage	Gross, Mt	Transferable, Mt	Issued	Position under current ICAO decisions
2027	0.07	0.04–0.05	2029	Within ART’s approved dates and in time for 2027–2029.
2028	0.36	0.21–0.24	2031	Dates approved; issued after the January 2031 deadline unless verification is annual.
2029	0.66	0.37–0.42	2031	As 2028.
2030–2031	2.40	1.37–1.56	2033	No programme or dates approved yet for 2030–2032.
2032–2034	2.95	1.67–1.92	2034–2036	No programme or dates approved yet for 2033–2035.
2035	1.35	0.77–0.87	2037	No compliance period left under the scheme’s current end date.
2027–2035	7.80	4.43–5.05

What may be called CORSIA-eligible

ICAO has approved ART for units with vintages up to 2029, and nothing beyond. Describing the whole base-case volume of 4.4 to 5.1 MtCO₂e as CORSIA-eligible would overstate what has been decided. On the standard cycle only the 2027 vintage is both approved and issued in time for its own period. Annual verification from the second year brings the 2028 vintage in. Later vintages depend on ICAO decisions not yet taken, and the 2035 vintage should be planned for buyers outside aviation.

Module 05

Finance: settlement, costs and cash flow

The structure can be built. On the evidence, the economics describe a public programme that carbon revenue co-finances, and not a self-funding investment. This module shows the arithmetic so that a reader can test it.

Table M5.1 · Base-case volumes of 4.43 to 5.05 MtCO₂e, 2027 to 2035; US$ million, undiscounted. The plan is the Niassa Provincial Integrated Forest Management Plan, costed at US$82 million over ten years.
Price band	US$ per unit	Gross receipts	After operating costs	Share of forest plan covered	Position at end-2037
Spot-anchored	10–12	44–61	36–52	44–63%	−46 to −30
Base	15–18	66–91	58–82	71–100%	−24 to 0
Upside	25–38	111–192	102–183	125–224%	+20 to +101

The measures that would produce the reductions are those of the provincial forest plan: US$54.8 million for livelihoods and food security, US$22.6 million for climate and disaster resilience and US$4.7 million for capacity and governance.¹⁰ Operating costs of the carbon programme itself, for programme management and monitoring, six verifications, validation and registry fees, come to about US$8.5 million over eleven years, 9% to 13% of base-band receipts.

Figure M5.1 · Cumulative cash position at the base band if the plan is spent evenly from 2027 to 2036. Receipts arrive in steps because units are issued two to three years after the reductions. The band shows the range between the lower and upper volume and price cases.

Pre-financing. About US$35 million is needed for 2027 to 2030 before material receipts arrive; the deepest cumulative deficit at the base band is US$41 to US$44 million.
Break-even. Base-case volumes cover the forest plan at US$16.20 to US$18.50 a unit, and the plan plus operating costs at US$17.90 to US$20.40. The base band sits almost exactly at that level.
Present value. Discounted at 10%, receipts are worth about 46% of their face value: US$31 to US$42 million at the base band.
Verification frequency. Annual verification would reduce the deepest deficit from about US$41 million to about US$32 million, at roughly US$1 million of extra cost.

Claims exceed cash at the base band

At US$15 to US$18 a unit, operating costs, the reserve and a funded forest plan exhaust the receipts. A funded plan, a sovereign share and a developer return cannot all hold at that price. A return to the developer begins above US$18 to US$20 a unit. Pre-financing should come from grants, concessional finance or capital at risk. Prepaid forward sales are likely to count as public debt and would need ratification.

Two tracks, one registry line

Track 1 is the State’s sale of jurisdictional units. Track 2 is everything third parties do inside the province. The registry account is the dividing line: units are issued only into the Government’s programme account. Third-party initiatives are brought under the umbrella by participation agreements in which they release their claims to the State in exchange for a place in the benefit-sharing plan. Nothing is assigned to the vehicle. Revenue is recorded gross in the State budget and paid into the Treasury’s account, as the law on State financial administration requires, with short dwell times and no security granted over it.^26,7

Year-by-year cash flow, base band

Table M5.2 · US$ million.
Year	Receipts	Operating costs	Forest plan	Cumulative, lower case	Cumulative, upper case
2027	–	0.5	8.2	−8.7	−8.7
2028	–	0.8	8.2	−17.6	−17.6
2029	0.6–0.8	0.9	8.2	−26.1	−25.9
2030	–	0.5	8.2	−34.8	−34.6
2031	8.7–11.9	0.9	8.2	−35.2	−31.8
2032	–	0.5	8.2	−43.9	−40.5
2033	20.5–28.0	1.1	8.2	−32.7	−21.8
2034	6.5–8.9	0.9	8.2	−35.3	−22.0
2035	–	0.5	8.2	−44.0	−30.7
2036	18.6–25.5	1.1	8.2	−34.6	−14.4
2037	11.5–15.7	1.0	–	−24.1	+0.3
Total	66.4–90.9	8.6	82.0

Module 06

Synthesis: roadmap, gates and risk

Niassa is eligible under the standard. It is not yet authorised. At the base price band, carbon receipts of US$66 to US$91 million roughly cover the provincial forest plan and the programme’s operating costs. The programme is fundable as a public, results-based programme. It is not bankable as project finance.

Table M6.1 · Three tests of financeability.
Test	Question	Result	Reason
Project finance	Can a lender be repaid, with cover, from contracted cash flow?	No	No material receipt before 2031; receipts of US$66–91 million against costs near US$90 million; the receivable belongs to the Republic.
Return to the developer	Does the last step of the waterfall have value?	Not at the base band	Cash only above US$18–20 a unit.
Results-based public programme	Can public and concessional funders pay for the plan and recover part from verified results?	Yes, subject to conditions	Receipts after operating costs cover 71% to 100% of the plan at the base band, 44% to 63% at the spot-anchored band.

Roadmap

Table M6.2 · From mobilisation to first issuance in 33 to 36 months.
Month	If month 1 is January 2027	Milestone
Before 1	By December 2026	Gate 0: authority confirmed, funding identified, operating regime in place.
6	June 2027	TREES Concept filed.
15	March 2028	Article 6.2 initial report and framework authorisation; Registration Document filed.
18	June 2028	Programme licence; first Monitoring Report.
30	June 2029	Validation and first verification complete.
33–36	September–December 2029	Vintage letter, first issuance (2027 vintage), first sale: 0.04–0.05 MtCO₂e, about US$0.6–0.9 million.

Four gates

The analysis attaches 32 conditions to the programme. Fifteen can be met by the State alone, ten jointly, three by the sponsor side alone, and four lie outside both, with the standard-setter, ICAO and regulators. They are grouped into four gates, each of which releases the next commitment of money. As at 10 October 2026 the programme stands before Gate 0 and the conditions are open.

Table M6.3 · Gate structure. Two standing conditions are reviewed every year: national-scale monitoring from 2036 and ICAO decisions for 2030 to 2035.
Gate	Timing	What must be evidenced	Releases
0	Before mobilisation	Counsel confirms authority and the authorising organ is named; funding of about US$35 million for 2027–2030 identified; conservative model assumptions; security, fire and force-majeure regime; developer consideration only from cash received.	Programme spending
1	Before the Concept, month 6	Reconciled provincial series with a degradation estimate; accounting area, leakage category and start year settled; consent of the conservation authority; deduction rules confirmed by ART; NDC target in tonnes; household baseline survey.	Concept filing
2	Before the Registration Document, month 15	Article 6.2 initial report and framework authorisation; terms of the letter; reporting undertaken and funded; national ledger; safeguards information reported; benefit-sharing plan agreed with a community floor ranking ahead of the sovereign share; participation agreements with third parties.	Registration filing; field commitments beyond year one
3	Before the first vintage letter and sale, months 30–33	Finance ministry endorsement of each letter and registry entry; receipts in a State account swept to the Treasury; vehicle confirmed outside the regulatory perimeter; annual verification budgeted; buyers selected on enforcement regime and admissibility.	First letter, delivery and receipt

Selected entries from the risk register

Table M6.4 · Extract. The full register rates 31 risks by likelihood and impact: 9 high, 18 medium, 4 low.
Risk	Rating	Mitigation
No authorising organ or Article 6 filings by month 15	High	No Registration Document and no field spending beyond year one until filed.
Funding for 2027–2030 not found; plan carried out in part	High	Gate 0 bars mobilisation without identified funding; results-based and concessional sources first.
Insecurity in northern districts stops field work or verification	High	Security protocol; satellite monitoring; staged access; concentration on accessible districts.
Benefits reach communities late	High	Delivery system built before revenue; community floor; pool ranks ahead of the State.
Vintage letter delayed, refused or withdrawn	High	Irrevocable authorisation from first transfer; tranches; political-risk cover.
ICAO does not extend approval beyond 2029 vintages	High	Disclose the limit; allow sales outside aviation.
Permanence and insurance rules do not fit a subnational programme ending in 2035	High	Written confirmation from ART before the Concept.
Prices stay at US$10–12	High	Fund the plan from public and concessional sources.
Severe fire year leaves a vintage without units	Medium	Fire management; conservative sales commitments.
Subnational window closes in 2035 without a national programme	Medium	National monitoring plan and budget; decision by 2032.

MRV, deductions and the risk buffer

A tonne is worth what its measurement can defend. Three things decide how many of the tonnes reduced in Niassa become units that can be sold: how the reduction is measured, what the standard deducts for leakage and uncertainty, and how much is set aside against the risk that the forest is lost later.

4.1 Measurement, reporting and verification

Mozambique already runs the core of a monitoring system: a national sample grid at 4 km spacing interpreted on high-resolution imagery, annual satellite change maps since 2017, emission factors from the National Forest Inventory and two verifications by an accredited body in Zambézia.^2,15 Niassa holds 7,962 units of that grid. Tightening it to 2 km would give about 31,800 units and narrower confidence intervals. TREES 3.0 requires probability sampling, interpretation by more than one interpreter, area estimates with 90% confidence intervals and documented procedures that a verifier can replicate. It accepts biomass maps for emission factors where they are calibrated and validated with national data.¹⁸

Table 4.1 · Layers of the monitoring architecture.
Layer	What it delivers	Status
Sample grid and visual interpretation	Activity data: area of deforestation by year, with confidence intervals.	Operating nationally; provincial intensification proposed.
Annual optical change maps	Location of change; stratification of the sample.	Produced since 2017.
Radar and spaceborne lidar	Cloud-season coverage; extension of plot biomass to the landscape.	Candidate data sources for Phase I. Not yet part of the national system.
Stratified field plots	Emission factors for Niassa; dead wood, litter and soil samples; first estimate of degradation.	To be established in Phase I.
Independent validation and verification	Opinion of a body accredited and approved by ART, contracted separately from the implementers.	After crediting years 1, 3 and 5; optionally every year.

The cycle is slow by design. A Concept is followed by a Registration Document within two calendar years; the first validation and verification may take up to 18 months; documents are open for public comment for 60 days; and the ART Board approves each issuance.¹⁸ No credit is issued ahead of verification.

4.2 From gross reduction to transferable unit

Three deductions stand between a verified reduction and a unit. The leakage deduction depends on how much of the national forest the accounting area holds. The uncertainty deduction depends on the confidence interval of the estimate. The buffer contribution depends on the reversal risk rating and is taken from what remains after the first two.

Figure 4.1 · What remains of 100 gross tonnes in four deduction cases. The central cases, 56.8% and 64.8%, are used for all volumes on this site.

Table 4.2 · Deduction cases. For comparison: in Zambézia’s second reporting period 55% of gross reductions remained after the buffers.
Case	Leakage	Uncertainty	Buffer, of remainder	Transferable	Total deduction
Favourable	10%	6%	15%	71.4%	28.6%
Central, medium leakage	10%	9%	20%	64.8%	35.2%
Central, high leakage	20%	9%	20%	56.8%	43.2%
Adverse	20%	15%	25%	48.8%	51.2%

Niassa sits on the leakage line

An accounting area that holds less than a quarter of the national forest carries a leakage deduction of 20%; from a quarter upward the deduction is 10%. Niassa holds 24.5% to 24.9% on like-for-like figures. The forest map used at registration will decide the category, and with it 9% to 14% of the transferable volume. Adding Cabo Delgado Province would lift the share to about 37%, but only pays if that province’s own emissions stay close to their recent level.

4.3 Reversals and the buffer

A reversal is a year in which emissions rise above the crediting level. The buffer pool exists to compensate for it, and a participant that suffers a reversal contributes 30% to the buffer for the following five years.¹⁸ In Miombo the main reversal risk is fire. It is set to clear fields, to hunt and to harvest honey; about half of the Reserve’s core burns every year, and Niassa registered a fifth of the country’s fire hotspots in 2020.¹⁰ Fire management is therefore a carbon measure before it is anything else. National law adds its own requirement: Decree 23/2018 prescribes two reserves for each programme, for uncertainty and for reversals. Whether they sit on top of the standard’s deductions or are satisfied by them needs written confirmation before a financial model is fixed.⁷

Why there is no probability distribution here

The volumes on this site come from four deterministic deduction cases and three emission paths. A stochastic simulation with P10, P50 and P90 values needs measured variances for activity data and emission factors in Niassa. Those exist only after the Phase I field campaign. Publishing percentiles before then would lend precision to numbers that do not yet have it.

Cancún safeguards, biodiversity and local value

ART TREES ties the issuance of every unit to the seven safeguards that the Parties to the UNFCCC agreed in Cancún. A participant must show, through indicators of structure and process and of outcome, that each was addressed and respected, and the State must report on them to the UNFCCC.^13,18 In Niassa the safeguards are not a compliance annex. The people whose consent they protect are the same people whose decisions about a hectare of woodland produce the result.

Table 5.1 · The seven Cancún safeguards. TREES 3.0 subdivides them into themes, places free, prior and informed consent under Safeguard C and names gender, youth and vulnerable groups explicitly.
Safeguard	Requirement	What it means in Niassa
A	Consistency with national forest programmes and international agreements	Alignment with the National REDD+ Strategy and with the provincial forest plan 2023–2032, which the programme finances and does not replace.
B	Transparent and effective forest governance	Published terms, volumes and payments; receipts recorded in the State budget; a working grievance mechanism.
C	Respect for the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities	Recognition of land-use rights acquired by customary occupation; free, prior and informed consent, recorded before the Registration Document is filed.
D	Full and effective participation of stakeholders, including women, youth and vulnerable groups	Consultation through traditional authorities (régulos), natural-resource management committees and district services, in the languages used locally.
E	Conservation of natural forests and biodiversity; social and environmental benefits	No conversion of natural forest; the Reserve as core biodiversity zone; a benefit-sharing plan agreed before proceeds are distributed.
F	Actions to address the risk of reversals	Community fire management; the buffer pool; conservative sales commitments.
G	Actions to reduce the displacement of emissions	Province-wide accounting; the leakage deduction; monitoring along the borders with Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Zambézia.

5.1 Consent and rights

Under the Land Law, communities hold use rights to land they occupy by custom, whether or not the right is registered. Under the forest and wildlife regime they receive 20% of licence fees. Niassa has 27 community conservation and hunting areas covering 2.76 million hectares, of which Chipanje Chetu in Sanga district is the largest, and 30 forest concessions and simple licences on 560,000 hectares.^9,10 Each of these is a rights-holder inside the accounting area. The standard issues units only for reductions to which the participant can demonstrate rights, and requires evidence of the agreements by which other holders transfer theirs.¹⁸ Consent is therefore a precondition of volume, and it has to be obtained before registration, not explained afterwards.

5.2 How the money is shared

Table 5.2 · Three reference points for a community share.
Reference	Rule	Applied to Niassa, base band 2029–2037
Zambézia programme	After operating costs and a 5% buffer: communities 70%, private sector 20%, districts 4%, reserve 4%, province 2%.	US$39–55 million to communities
Guyana	15% to community-led programmes; 85% to national priorities through the budget.	US$10–14 million
Civil-society proposal on the draft regulation	Communities at least 20% of sales revenue; State charges at most 20%.	US$13–18 million

The percentage matters less than the delivery. In Zambézia about 16% of the first payment had reached beneficiaries two years after it was received.^12,16 The architecture answers that record in three ways: a community floor fixed in a legal instrument as a share of gross receipts; a benefit-sharing pool that ranks ahead of the sovereign share; and a delivery system of legally constituted community organisations, bank accounts and calls for proposals that is built before the first receipt, with disbursement due within twelve months of each one. Decree 23/2018 makes failure to implement the benefit-sharing plan a ground for revoking the licence.⁷

5.3 Livelihoods that replace clearing

Two-thirds of the provincial forest plan’s budget, US$54.8 million of US$82 million, is for livelihoods and food security. Its measures work on the drivers: forest zoning and community forestry, higher yields on fields that already exist so that new ones need not be cut, fuel-efficient curing and cooking, fire management, and enforcement.¹⁰ Conservation agriculture and agroforestry, beekeeping, which gives standing woodland a cash value and a reason to keep fire out, and paid community ranger and fire-brigade work belong to the same family of measures. At the base price band carbon receipts amount to about US$4 to US$6 for each rural inhabitant a year. That is enough to finance services and enterprises. It is not enough to pay households not to farm.

5.4 Biodiversity

The Niassa Special Reserve is one of the largest protected areas in Africa. With the Selous landscape across the Rovuma in Tanzania it forms a transfrontier conservation area of about 154,000 km², habitat for African elephant, lion and African wild dog.^27,1 Nationally, the conservation authority records 5,743 plant species and 129 of 215 mapped ecosystems as threatened. The aviation market does not price this: a CORSIA unit is a tonne of carbon dioxide. No premium for biodiversity is assumed in any figure on this site. The value of the Reserve to the programme is of another kind. It anchors the accounting area ecologically, and its managing authority, which holds the right to the carbon stock inside it, is a party whose consent the programme needs.⁸

Table 5.3 · Co-benefit metrics, base case.
Goal	Indicator	Quantified now	To be measured
SDG 13 · Climate	Gross verified reductions; tonnes retained for the national target	7.80 Mt gross, 2027–2035; 6.5–7.1 Mt retained	Each verification
SDG 15 · Life on land	Clearing avoided; area burnt	About 82,300 ha of clearing avoided	Fire and degradation indicators after the Phase I baseline
SDG 1 · No poverty	Disbursements per year; share reaching communities within 12 months	US$4–6 per rural inhabitant a year	Household baseline survey; annual disbursement audit
SDG 8 · Decent work	Jobs financed; community organisations with legal personality and accounts	None: no baseline exists	Payroll and grant records
SDG 16 · Institutions	Share of receipts in the budget; days to the Treasury; grievances resolved	Target: 100%, under ten days	Annual audited statement

Public sources

Official primary records are used for baselines, areas and legal provisions; documents of multilateral institutions, standards bodies, price-reporting agencies and accredited verifiers for programme results, methodology and market context; civil-society reports where a point depends on them. Figures described as derived or as scenarios are calculated from these inputs. Web sources were consulted in October 2026.

Instituto Nacional de Estatística (2025). Estatísticas do Ambiente 2024. Maputo. unstats.un.org
Republic of Mozambique (2024, modified submission 2025). REDD+ Technical Annex: results from reducing emissions from deforestation, 2017–2020. Submitted to the UNFCCC. unfccc.int
UNFCCC (2018). Report of the technical assessment of the proposed forest reference emission level of Mozambique, FCCC/TAR/2018/MOZ. unfccc.int
FNDS and National Directorate of Forests (2018). Policy brief: results of the IV National Forest Inventory. fnds.gov.mz
World Bank (2018). Mozambique Country Forest Note. documents.worldbank.org
FAO (2020, 2025). Global Forest Resources Assessment, country report Mozambique and FRA 2025. doi.org
Republic of Mozambique. Decree 23/2018 of 3 May, Regulation for REDD+ Programmes and Projects. Boletim da República, I Série, no. 87. faolex.fao.org
Republic of Mozambique. Law 16/2014 (Conservation) as amended and republished by Law 5/2017; Decree 89/2017. faolex.fao.org
Republic of Mozambique. Law 17/2023, Forest Law. Boletim da República, I Série, no. 250; Law 19/97, Land Law; Constitution of the Republic, articles 98 and 109.
Republic of Mozambique. Ministerial Diploma 26/2024 of 30 April, Niassa Provincial Integrated Forest Management Plan 2023–2032. Boletim da República, I Série, no. 84. faolex.fao.org
Centro de Integridade Pública (2026). Report on civil-society recommendations on the proposed decree on carbon markets in Mozambique. cipmoz.org
Centro de Integridade Pública (2024). Mozambique’s carbon credits: low revenues, rising deforestation and limited benefits for communities.
UNFCCC. Decision 1/CP.16, Appendix I (Cancún safeguards); Decisions 9/CP.19 to 15/CP.19 (Warsaw Framework for REDD+).
World Bank (15 October 2021). Mozambique becomes first country to receive emission reductions payments from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. worldbank.org
Aster Global Environmental Solutions (2022). Verification report, reporting period 2019–2020, Zambézia Integrated Landscape Management Program. fnds.gov.mz
Republic of Mozambique (2018). Revised Emission Reductions Program Document, Zambézia; FNDS (2019). Benefit Sharing Plan. FCPF Carbon Fund. forestcarbonpartnership.org
Republic of Mozambique (2025). Provisional NDC 3.0, filed 5 November 2025. unfccc.int
Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (June 2026). The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES), Version 3.0, with Summary of Changes from TREES 2.0. artredd.org
Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (25 June 2026). ART releases TREES 3.0. artredd.org
UNFCCC. Decisions 2/CMA.3 (2021), 6/CMA.4 (2022) and 4/CMA.6 (2024), guidance on cooperative approaches under Article 6, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement; Decision 3/CMA.3 on the Article 6.4 mechanism.
ICAO. CORSIA Eligible Emissions Units; CORSIA Emissions Unit Eligibility Criteria; Assembly Resolution A41-22; Annex 16, Volume IV. icao.int
Fastmarkets (2025–2026). Assessments of CORSIA first-phase eligible emissions units and related market reports. fastmarkets.com
IATA (2025–2026). CORSIA fact sheet; sectoral growth factor forecast; SAF production volumes.
Abu Dhabi Global Market. Application of English Law Regulations 2015; Financial Services Regulatory Authority framework for environmental instruments (2022), as summarised by Norton Rose Fulbright. nortonrosefulbright.com
Co-operative Republic of Guyana (2024, 2025). Article 6.2 initial report; host country letter of assurance and authorisation.
Republic of Mozambique. Law 14/2020, State financial administration system (SISTAFE).
Wildlife Conservation Society. Niassa Special Reserve. mozambique.wcs.org
Natural Earth. 1:50m Admin 0 – Countries (public domain), country outline used in the map. naturalearthdata.com

Project overview, legal notice and imprint

Project & Portal: Niassa Nature Reserve – Jurisdictional Carbon & Biodiversity Initiative (mozcarbon.com)
Jurisdiction: Niassa Province, Republic of Mozambique
Standard: ART TREES 3.0 · Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement · ICAO CORSIA
Status: Pre-registration · information as at 10 October 2026
Contact: info@mozcarbon.com

Information-only and non-solicitation disclaimer

mozcarbon.com is an information and documentation site about the Niassa jurisdictional REDD+ initiative. It is not an offer or an invitation to buy or sell securities, fund interests, carbon credits or any other instrument, and it is not a prospectus or a financial promotion in any jurisdiction. Nothing on it is legal, tax, accounting or investment advice.

The programme described here is at the pre-registration stage. No TREES Concept has been filed, no unit has been issued, and no transfer has been authorised by the Republic of Mozambique. All parameters, volumes, prices and financial figures are scenario calculations from public sources as at October 2026. They are not forecasts, and they remain subject to field measurement, formal validation and verification, the decisions of the standard-setter and of ICAO, and the sovereign acts of authorisation described on this site. Actual results may differ materially.

The site is a desk-based compilation. It is not based on field data and has not been audited or independently verified. It is not an official publication of the Republic of Mozambique or of any of its ministries, and it does not state the position of the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the Abu Dhabi Global Market or any other body named. Their names and the designations ART, TREES and CORSIA are used descriptively and belong to their respective owners. No person may rely on this site, and the publisher accepts no liability for decisions taken on the basis of it.

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